Photo by mindgutter

They went there.

The Post reports that Fairfax officials gathered last week to discuss the future growth of Tysons Corner—now known simply as Tysons—and had some pretty ballsy things to say about where the suburban center might end up vis-à-vis D.C. in the future:

Gerald L. Gordon, president of the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority, didn’t pull any punches. Working through a slide show showing the county’s growth over the past 30 years, Gordon said Fairfax County had become the economic center of the region.

Then he broke out this line: “Fairfax County is now the downtown. D.C. just became our suburb.”

His reasoning? Fairfax now has more Fortune 500 companies than D.C., has lower unemployment and will soon have direct access to Metro’s Silver Line. Moreover, Tysons deals with none of D.C.’s restrictions on how tall buildings can grow, office space is cheaper and development projects in the pipeline portend another major U.S. city sprouting up just outside of D.C.

D.C. officials didn’t take the claim lightly. “We don’t consider Fairfax County to be our competition. New York City is our competitor. San Francisco is our competitor. They’re not even in the same league. I think somebody really needs to go look up in a dictionary what the definitions of suburban and urban are. And then maybe we can have a discussion,” said Pedro Ribeiro, Mayor Vince Gray’s spokesman, to the Post.

We’re not sure if D.C. should be so dismissive of Fairfax County’s competition: D.C. officials regularly push tax breaks and promote tax cuts based on the very fact that taxes tend to be lower in Northern Virginia, and many companies have been aggressively courted by both jurisdictions. (A recent debate in the D.C. Council over tax breaks for tech companies hinged on the very argument that if the breaks weren’t granted, the companies would flee to Northern Virginia.)

And while Tysons and Fairfax County more broadly aren’t to be underestimated as economic powerhouses, even responding to the claim that we’re their suburb overlooks the fact that D.C. and Tysons are simply very different places that serve different purposes. More and more people are coming to live in D.C., after all, while Tysons remains the sort of place that people go to work by day and flee at night. Tysons may eventually become a nightlife destination, but right now it’s a big office park and a huge mall.